


Prank War

by AnonJay



Category: Moana (2016)
Genre: Gen, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 06:49:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13094685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonJay/pseuds/AnonJay
Summary: Crab vs. Demigod, Junior EditionIt's all fun and games until someone takes it a step too far.





	Prank War

Tamatoa chuckled to himself as he dabbed his paintbrush into a nearby coconut shell. The young crab struggled a bit, since claws weren’t exactly suited for painting like this… But then again, making something that looked pretty wasn’t his aim here… He grinned as he looked up at his canvas: the sleeping face of a certain demigod. It had been covered in various swirls and markings… a fake tongue crudely drawn to look like it was hanging from his mouth… pupils drawn onto his eyelids to look in different directions… Truly a masterpiece already, but Tamatoa was determined to make it perfect before Maui woke up.

“This’ll show him,” he commented to himself as he drew large buck teeth.

Mini Maui raised an eyebrow from his spot on his host’s forearm. It took Tamatoa a while to notice, but the living tattoo was giving him a pretty impressive ‘mom glare.’

“Hey, he started it! … I think… But he got me last month! It’s my turn!”

Mini Maui rolled his eyes, and his shoulders bounced with a silent but good-natured chuckle. He’d been stuck in the middle of this little prank war between Maui and Tamatoa for decades now. It had started out small, with sarcastic comments and little jokes at the others’ expense, but then the rivalry started to grow as the two got more competitive… Hiding gross things in the other’s food, popping out and startling the other… at one point Tamatoa stole Maui’s hook and leaves while he was out swimming.

That had been an interesting party.

Mini Maui moved toward Maui’s hand for a better look at the crab’s handiwork as Tamatoa continued painting… A dab here, a smudge there… Almost done! If the crab could just get one… more…

Suddenly, the sleeping demigod was engulfed in a flash of blinding blue light. Tamatoa screeched in alarm and scrambled backwards, only barely avoiding a set of wickedly sharp claws that swiped past his eyestalks. Maui was gone, and in his place towered a sloth monster from Lalotai! The markings on its mask flashed underneath a tangled mass of brown and black fur, and a shuddering, creaky battlecry rattled from somewhere underneath as it lunged forward.

The little crab continued fleeing backwards, but in his panic, Tamatoa didn’t notice a dip behind him, and tumbled as he lost his footing. He landed on his back in the algae-covered sand with a muffled thud, legs flailing uselessly, and no matter how much he struggled, he couldn’t right himself in time.

The creature loomed over him, crashing its paws against the ground at Tamatoa’s sides, earning frightened yelps with each strike. It growled and lifted its mask to reveal rows of sharp teeth, and threads of drool dripped on the terrified crab’s face… It leaned in, ready to finish off its prey…

Then broke out into peals of laughter.

“Got ya!”

Tamatoa blinked, fear giving way to confusion before morphing into annoyance as he realized what just happened.

“It wasn’t funny, Maui!” Tamatoa scolded. “You scared me!”

“Seemed pretty funny to me, Crabcake.”

“I told you already, it’s TAMATOA!”

Maui just shrugged, and effortlessly flipped the crab back right-side-up with his foot. Tamatoa hissed and tried to pinch the demigod’s tendon, but as usual, Maui just sauntered out of reach, and with a light zap turned back into his default humanoid form.

“Come on, Crabcake, ya gotta admit I got ya good,” he went on with a twirl of his fish hook. “Your prank was good too… Not as great, of course… 7/10 tops, but next time maybe make sure I’m actually asleep before ya get started. Save ya the effort and embarrassment of bein’ out-pranked again.”

Tamatoa huffed and crossed his arms. “If you were awake the whole time, then why’d ya let me paint you in the first place?”

“Make ya think ya won,” He wiped a black smudge away from his cheek. “Plus, it made scaring you all the more rewarding.”

“You’re a jerk.”

“Love ya too, kid.” Maui grinned in the smuggest possible way, and knelt down. “Here, let me help ya clean that algae off of your shell.”

But Tamatoa skittered away from his hands. “Leave me alone.”

“Crabcake, I’m just trying ta-”

“I said leave me alone!” the crab spat, and stormed off into the nearby underbrush, leaving the demigod by himself on the beach.

 

* * *

 

Stars shined like crystals in the dark night sky as Maui hummed to himself in his hammock… another day of doing heroic deeds for the humans had come and gone, and the demigod was getting ready for some well-deserved Z’s…

… Or he would be if a certain tattoo wasn’t literally prickling in irritation on his chest.

“Are ya STILL not speaking to me?”

Mini Maui glared at his host, and with a silent snap of his fingers, a little representation of a sad Tamatoa appeared at his side. He picked up the little crab in his arms, though never broke eye-contact with his larger self.

Maui frowned. “Alright, look… that prank was over a week ago. Lil’ Crabcake’s gotten over it by now. He’s a tough little monster, he’ll be fine.”

Mini Maui didn’t seem convinced. He gave Mini Tama a few reassuring pats before setting him down on the clear skin beside him, and the little crab tattoo disappeared in a cartoonish cloud of smoke. Question marks popped up around Mini Maui as the tattoo pantomimed searching over the hills and trees of Maui’s other tattoos.

He gave Maui another pointed look; confident that his message had come across.

… That was true enough, actually… Maui hadn’t seen Tamatoa at all since that scare. He figured he was off doing his own… whatever crabs do during the day… but then again, Tamatoa almost always popped up again around during mealtimes, and Maui hadn’t seen chitin or antenna of him at all recently. He knew he wasn’t molting either, because he had just done a month or two ago…

He hoped the young monster was okay…

“Alright,” he huffed as he bounced up from his hammock. “If you’re so worried about ‘im, we’ll go find Crabcake. Happy?”

Mini Maui clearly saw through his host’s attempt to hide his true concerns about this, but nodded as he returned to his spot on Maui’s pectoral. The demigod himself grabbed his hook and hefted it onto his shoulder.

“Let’s see… if I were a crab,” he mumbled to himself, “where would I be?”

… … …

Well, simple enough to find out!

He tightened his grip, and in a flash of light, reappeared as a small monster crab himself. Maui didn’t use this form as much, so he took a moment to figure out the abilities this crab body had to offer, but almost immediately, his heightened senses caught a powerful odor lingering through the jungle.

His sensitive antennae twitched and recoiled… Whatever it was smelled awful, and his face twisted in disgust.

“Yeesh… Crabcakes can smell anything, can’t he?” Maui muttered, thankful that he couldn’t smell like this normally. “If a bug died anywhere on this entire island, I could probably smell it from here.”

A buzzing in his armor signified that Mini Maui was getting impatient.

“Right, right… Doesn’t matter right now… Gotta find the kid.”

And as much as he hated the idea, that smell was probably his best bet. Coconut crabs were scavengers, after all, and Tamatoa had never been different in that respect. Why, he could remember a time when-

His claw shot forward as Mini Maui invisibly tugged him toward the path.

“Alright! Alright! I’m going!“

Maui marched out into the thick brush, head high as his antennae bobbed and weaved to follow the scent. The light of his campfire slowly disappeared behind him as he delved further into the dark jungle, until only the light of the moon and the stars prevented him from bumping into trees and tripping over rocks.

He raised his hook-marked claw to his mouth. “Crabcakes!” Maui yelled out. “Come on, kid, where are ya?”

But there was no reply. He called out a few more times as he searched on, and the smell was growing stronger and stronger with each passing step.

Something felt off about all of this, but Maui pushed it to the back of his mind.

“If this is about scarin’ ya before, I didn’t mean to spook ya that bad, alright? Come back to camp.”

Still nothing… This was getting ridiculous… The island wasn’t that big in the first place, so where had the little guy run off to?

“I’m sorry alright? Is that what you’re looking for ya little-”

His foot suddenly struck against something buried in the sand, and as whatever it was shifted, the smell practically slapped Maui in the face. He gagged as he staggered backwards.

“Ugh… gross! Guess I found whatever reeks…” he commented to himself, and with another flash he was back in his humanoid form. Thankfully the smell wasn’t nearly as bad now, but whatever it was, it still felt like there was a rotting fish shoved up Maui’s nose.

Maui leaned down and pushed away more earth to get a closer look… but as more was cleared away, the demigod froze.

“… Wh… what?”

Shaky hands reached down and carefully removed the object… Maui gulped and his blood ran cold. He didn’t want to believe his eyes, but he recognized i immediately.

An all too familiar crab… limp and lifeless in Maui’s grip.

“Wh.. N-no!”

He tapped Tamatoa’s shell, gently at first, but more desperately as he went on, but there wasn’t a single flicker of movement throughout the monster’s body.

He spun it to face him, practically shouting now as he dropped to his knees. “Crabcake, wake up! You can’t be… I-I mean I just-… You’ve only been on your own a week!”

Still no response.

Maui barely even registered the smell anymore, even as it hung around him now like a fog. One phrase kept screaming at the front of his mind, even drowning out his heartbeat pounding in his ears.

_‘This is your fault.’_

“… Maui…”

Again, the demigod froze, though a shiver shot right up his spine as a quiet voice called out to him.

“Maaaaaaauuuuiiiiiii…”

He looked up, just as a glowing figure stepped out of the surrounding undergrowth… One that looked just like his fallen friend. It stared at Maui unblinking, and slowly shuffled forward with a single claw outstretched.

Maui screeched, and dropped the body as he tried to retreat, but his foot caught on an exposed root, and he landed backwards with a heavy thud. The demigod could only watch in horror as the ghost-like creature hoisted itself onto the his stomach. Maui couldn’t get himself to move, and as the little crab got closer to his face, he clenched his teeth and screwed his eyes shut.

A claw caressed his cheek, and the ghost leaned in toward Maui’s ear…

“… Got ya!”

Maui’s eyes flew back open, and the crab on his chest burst out into uproarious laughter as he tumbled back into the sand.

“You should’ve seen the look on your face!”

“Crabcake?” Maui blinked. “You’re alive!?”

“Of course I am!” Tamatoa smiled. “But I scared ya, didn’t I?”

A beat… A frown… then a furious growl.

“… KID, WHAT THE HELL!?”

Tamatoa yelped as Maui suddenly got up to his feet. The demigod’s cheeks burned bright maroon as he glared down at the monster.

“I thought you were DEAD!”

“But I wasn’t!” he smiled proudly. “I pranked you and you fell for it!”

“No! You crossed a line there! Ya nearly gave me a heart attack!”

The little crab frowned, tilting his head like a confused puppy as he took a tentative step back. “You… You scared me last time… how is this different?”

“Because I thought you had DIED! Can’t you see that!? You had me worried sick and I-”

Maui suddenly stopped as Tamatoa let out a weak whimper… Right… he was shouting at the equivalent of a small child, wasn’t he? … Granted one that was over half a century old and covered in chitin, but Tamatoa was still a little kid.

He took a deep breath through his nose and folded his hands together.

“… Because I was worried about you, kid… I thought for a second there that I’d never see you again, and… And I thought it was my fault… If something ever _really_ happened to you, I wouldn’t forgive myself.”

Tamatoa blinked, but said nothing, so Maui continued.

“It’s just different, okay? I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“… Okay…” Tamatoa mumbled, muffling an embarrassed chirp as he lowered himself into the sand.

Maui felt a sharp slap against his chest. Mini Maui frowned at him, tapping his foot in a clear sign of disappointment before he gestured back to Tamatoa.

The kid hadn’t meant to scare him THAT badly, after all… He thought he was just playing along… And in retrospect, he must’ve put a ton of work into it… Maui couldn’t even remember the last time he’d seen the little monster put that much effort into anything.

…

The demigod sighed again. No use making him feel any worse about it. Maybe he could turn this around.

“… So how’d you do it?”

Tamatoa’s antennae perked back up. “What?”

“How’d you pull off the prank? You must’ve been planning this for a while.” Maui picked up the decoy crab and held it out. “Like this… Is this one of your old molts?”

Tamatoa nodded and tapped the decoy’s hollow face. “Yeah. I kept this one the last time I shed my armor.”

“But… it smells like death… You’ve dragged your old shells around before and they never smelled THIS bad!”

“Oh! Here, I’ll show you!” He reached inside the old shell and pulled out a much smaller and very dead surface crab. “Caught it earlier this week,” he chuckled as he tossed it up and caught it in his jaws. “Wanted to make sure it was extra rotten and stinky so you’d find it,” he explained through a full mouth.

Ugh… Monster table manners… Go figure…

“Alright,” Maui tossed the shell aside, “but what about the glowing? How’d you pull that off?”

“Easy!” The crab grabbed a nearby leaf and wiped his face. The green glow was smeared away, save for his natural bioluminescent markings, and he held out the leaf to Maui. “Remember that algae I tripped in after you jumped at me? Turns out it glows at night. Made me look like a ghost!”

Tamatoa was beaming again. He was so proud of himself for finally scaring Maui back… And the demigod had to admit he was impressed, even if it had scared him half to death. He took a deep breath, and managed a laugh as he pulled the crab in close and affectionately noogied his head with a single knuckle. 

“Well, Tamatoa,” he smirked. “I think it’s safe to say you won that round. Now never do it again.”

The young monster’s eyes sparkled even as he swatted Maui’s hand away. “You used my name!”

“Yeah, yeah, but you’re still ‘Crabcake’ to me, kid… Speakin’ a which though, you must still be hungry… Can’t imagine that rotten crab tasted good.” He lifted Tamatoa onto his shoulder. “Let’s get you back to camp.”

“Mm-hmm!”

The little crab held on tightly, and rubbed his cheek against Maui’s as they wandered back to the clearing.

“Hey… If you think that was good, I can’t wait to show you my next prank!”

“… How about instead we call truce, kid?”


End file.
